him an angry glare. "He has Ursal and he has the Allhearts. He has all the land to Entel and the sea, and he has Duke Bretherford and the fleet. Honce-the-Bear is his, I fear, and I see no way..." He paused as the coach lurched to a stop. Up in front, they heard the driver yelling at someone to clear the road.
Prynnius leaned forward and poked his head out the coach's window.
"Ye get outa the way!" the driver yelled. "Don't ye know who I'm carrying, ye fool highwaymen?"
"Highwaymen?" Torrence asked, coming forward in his seat. He slowed though, when he noted the grim expression on Prynnius' face, when he noted the man shaking his head slowly, his eyes telling Torrence clearly that he recognized some of the supposed highwaymen who had intercepted their coach.
"It would seem that our new King Aydrian is not secure in his victory as we presumed," Prynnius remarked, and he looked at Torrence and shrugged, then pushed open the coach door and drew out his sword as he exited the carriage.
Torrence sat there numbly, trying to register what this was all about even as the sounds of fighting erupted about him. He heard the hum of bowstrings, and heard one man call Prynnius a traitor to the Allhearts. A moment later, the coach shook as someone fell against it, then Prynnius opened the door and slumped in. He looked up at Torrence, his face a mask of resignation and defeat.
And then he lurched, and Torrence looked past his wincing face to see a man standing behind him, a man dressed as a common thief but wielding a fabulous weapon that no commoner could possibly afford. Prynnius jumped again a bit as the man twisted that sword within him.
With a growl of rage, Torrence grabbed up his own sword and dove forward, but the killer nimbly moved back out of reach.
Torrence sprawled across the dying Prynnius, half out of the coach. He started to scramble forward to pursue Prynnius' killer, but then he got hit from the side, and hard, and then got hit again. Dazed, he was only partly aware that his weapon had slipped from his hand. He hardly understood that he was being dragged from the coach, he hardly felt the boots and gauntlets smashing against him, pounding him down into darkness.
"Does it so bother you that your protege has stepped forward from your shadow?" Sadye asked quietly, the blunt question and her innocent tone throwing a bucket of water onto the fires that burned within Marcalo De'Unnero. "Is that not what you would want from him?"
"What do you mean?" the monk asked, shaking his head in disbelief. They were back in their room in one of the buildings near to Castle Ursal reserved for visiting lords - which De'Unnero had pretended to be during the usurping of King Danube's throne.
"Did you and Abbot Olin truly expect Aydrian to remain dependent upon you for his every move?" Sadye asked. "Did you truly wish that? How, my love, are you to get about the business of converting the Abellican Church to your vision if you are needed for King Aydrian's every move? How do you and Abbot Olin expect to truly defeat Father Abbot Fio Bou-raiy and men like Abbot Braumin Herde if you are busy concerning yourself with affairs of the state?"
"Aydrian may err, and such an error could cost us everything," De'Unnero replied, not convincingly.
"Only yesterday, you were singing his praises and admiring the beauty that is Aydrian," Sadye pointed out.
"I was giddy with victory, perhaps."
Sadye scoffed and gave a doubting little chuckle. "Aydrian took control of the situation here in Ursal sometime ago," she reminded. "It was he who facilitated the trial of Jilseponie Wyndon, discrediting both her and King Danube. It was he who tore Constance Pemblebury from the realm of death itself, that she might act on his behalf in ending the reign of Danube. It was he who pulled Duke Kalas back from that same dark realm and thus manipulated the man into subservience. Do not underestimate him! Take great heart and hope that your pupil has risen to become your - "
"My better?" There was no hiding the bitterness in De'Unnero's tone as he spat those two words.
"Your peer," Sadye corrected. "And you will need him as such if you are to have any hopes of dominating the Abellican Church. Yes, with Aydrian's armies behind you, you might sweep away Bou-raiy and his followers, but to gain